It's always a good sign when your little league football team has to rent a portable lighting system during the sunlight-shrinking nights of mid-October.

In the case of the Livonia Blue Jays' varsity gridiron squad, the additional lighting that debuted at Grant Elementary School Tuesday night will help illuminate the 8-0 team's practices as they prepare for Sunday's 3 p.m. first-round Western Lakes Junior Football League playoff game against the rival Livonia Orioles.

The Blue Jays' eye-opening emergence in the WLJFL has been a little surprising and somewhat historical given that several people close to the organization can't remember when the last time the program's varsity team has swept through a regular season unbeaten.

"The number one reason for our success is that we have a great group of boys," said head coach Mike Allam. "This is our coaching staff's third year with this group – we coached them at the junior-varsity level, too, and moved up with them – so we know them and they know us.

"Our main goal is to instill in them a sense of fundamental football. We don't try and run a lot of crazy and wacky stuff like a lot of little league teams. We're the feeder team for Livonia Franklin, so it helps that we've received a lot of support from the high school's coaching staff."

One unique feature of the Blue Jays' varsity coaching staff is that it is void of players' fathers.

"There is no daddy ball going on," Allam said, smiling. "Whatever you get, you have to earn and the boys know that.

Members of the Blue Jays are pictured following last week's eighth victory of the season.(Photo: REBEKAH THOMAS)

There was at least a small slice of optimism heading into this season, given that the 2014 varsity team qualified for the playoffs as a fourth seed, thus the second-year varsity eighth-graders knew what it took to get to the post-season.

Although the incoming seventh-graders won just two games the previous season on the JV team, several of them have made substantial contributions.

"Our offensive and defensive linemen are all seventh-graders," noted Shawn Pittenger, who serves as one of the program's directors along with Jim Reynolds and Matt Thomas.

The Blue Jays won the WLJFL's South Division by one game over the Livonia Eagles, who finished 4-1 in the division and 5-3 overall.

The Livonia Falcons finished 3-2 while the Orioles were 2-3. Four of the six teams in each division – Novi won the North Division with a 5-0 mark – qualify for the three-week playoff format.

Among the team's standouts this fall have been quarterback Jacob Kelbert, running backs James Carpenter and Rocco DiPonio, Yumon Crowell, Reece Reeves and Brendan Miller.